DEVELOPMENT OF A BRIEF 24-HOUR MIGRAINE-SPECIFIC QUALITY-OF-LIFE QUESTIONNAIRE

The objective of this study was to develop a questionnaire to assess t he short-term quality of life decrements associated with an acute migr aine headache attack. A total of 101 potential quality of life items w ere generated by interviewing mi graineurs and migraine specialists an d reviewing the literature. To reduce the items, 76 migraineurs (18 ye ars and older) were asked to identify which of the 101 items affected their quality of life in the 24 hours following onset of a migraine an d to rate them on a five-point scale from ''not very important'' to '' extremely important.'' Reduction of the 101 items to a 15-item questio nnaire was performed by evaluating the results of subject-perceived im portance (number of times an item was chosen x mean importance score) in combination with principal components analysis. Five domains were i dentified: (1) work functioning, (2) social functioning, (3) energy/vi tality, (4) migraine headache symptoms, and (5) feelings and concerns. Each domain has three items and the correlation between the five doma ins, as measured by the Spearman correlation coefficient. ranged from 0.08 to 0.38 suggesting minimal overlap. The brief migraine quality of life questionnaire was pilot-tested in two groups of 10 migraineurs a nd revised to improve clarity.